23
by Deastrumquodvicis
Summary: Sherlock Holmes wakes up in a mysterious Village where everyone has names instead of numbers and the new Number Two is someone he knows well.


Sherlock blinked. He sat up, still mildly disorientated from the knockout gas. Looking around the room, he noticed that certain things were slightly off. The shelf was one inch too far to the left. The paint was a slightly different colour of green. The light from the window was slightly too yellow. He rubbed his head and looked out of the window. Instead of the typical view of London, he was greeted with a view of an idyllic village.

He left his bedroom to find that the rest of wherever he was had a rather retro décor. Round doors, lava lamps, clocks straight out of the 1960s. It was puzzling the great detective. He left the house and strode down to the massive chessboard where people were standing in for the pieces. Everywhere he looked, he saw traces of drugging or brainwashing. Everyone had strange numbered badges, which he only assumed were some sort of identity marker as no two people had the same number.

A large object resembling a weather balloon bounded down the lane. Sherlock stared as it passed, wondering where he was. A young woman, eyes clouded with residual drugging, made eye contact with Sherlock.

"Where is this?" Sherlock asked, never one for small talk.

"The Village," she said, as though it were obvious.

"Which village? Where?"

The woman stopped for a few moments. "I don't know."

"Look, it's plain that you've been drugged, and we've both been kidnapped I suspect—you work in an office somewhere, going by your hands. Did you discover something you weren't supposed to?"

The woman ran away. The phone in the alcove next to Sherlock rang.

"Sherlock Holmes."

"Go to the Green Dome."

"Who is this?" He began to look all around him.

"A friend." The person on the other end hung up. His curiosity piqued, he strolled up the way, making note of every face and their body language toward him. As near as he could make out, there were two distinct groups. One was cautious, paranoid even, while the other was putting up a pretense of caution. Subtle changes gave it away. As he approached the classic dome, the door opened ominously on its own. The inner door, too, opened seemingly of its own volition. A huge wall showing the workings of a lava-lamp was on the left of the strange room, and in its centre were a circular desk, and, inside it, a round globe char.

The chair swiveled around to reveal a woman with dark blonde hair.

"Good morning, Number 23." She smiled pleasantly.

"Number 23?" He did not return her smile.

"Yes," she said, pushing a button on her desk which caused a tea set to rise.

"My name is Sherlock Hol—"

"Not here, it isn't." Her voice had suddenly become sharp. "Here, you are Number 23. Do remember that. It will avoid unpleasantness."

He stood, as still as a statue, eyes examining her every detail and motion. "What sort of unpleasantness?"

"Paperwork mix-ups," she said, amusement in her eyes. "Now, where shall we begin?"

"I find that the beginning is usually the best place."

She smiled gently. "Quite so. I am Number Two, for future reference." Sherlock's nose twitched. The woman—Number Two—pressed a switch and the room darkened. On the screen were many photographs of the detective in all his most important cases. "You're quite an interesting fellow."

"You're quite a boring woman," Sherlock interjected, irritated that she wasn't getting to the point.

The woman paused with good grace after such a rude interruption. "The world's only consulting detective. Interesting. It says here you have an IQ of 190, play the violin, box, fence, have martial arts training, and are a very good shot." Sherlock's mouth twitched with the hint of a smile. "It also says you have very few friends, spend hours at a time just sitting on your sofa deep in thought, take your coffee black with two sugars, and had a spot of a drug issue in your youth." Sherlock sighed. "Am I boring you?" Number Two asked.

"Yes. Just cut to the point."

"I will get there in my own time."

Sherlock, by this time, was past annoyed and was into exasperated.

"You've recently recovered the plans from the Bruce-Partington Project, but neglected to return them to their rightful owner. Why?"

"You seem to know everything about me. You tell me."

She smiled. "You wanted to flush out a known criminal." Her green eyes stared deep into Sherlock's. "You don't like knowing less about me than I know about you. Do you?"

He returned her stare. "You were born in Germany, but left when you were about five, play the guitar regularly, fell off a bicycle sometime in your adolescence, were abused as a child, suffered a long illness recently—probably cancer, were in altercations in grade school, and are bisexual."

For a moment, the woman looked startled, but then she settled back into her chair. "Impressive."

"Elementary." He rolled his eyes. "What do you want?"

"Information," she said simply.

"What manner of information? I'm sure I could tell you all you'd ever want to know about the properties of refrigerated saliva."

"How much do you know about BISCUIT?"

"It goes well with tea." By now he'd broken off eye contact and was sending clear signals that he thought she was wasting his time.

"I appreciate your sense of humour, 23, but it's not going to get you anywhere."

"Then stop wasting my time."

"So you don't know anything about BISCUIT?"

"I'm going to assume that's an acronym for something." He fidgeted, eager to leave.

"British Intelligence Special Commission Under International Treaties."

"Never heard of it," he lied.

"Really? That's strange, we heard you broke into the flat of its head operative."

"Coincidence," he replied dismissively. "I'd get that checked out if I were you."

"What?"

"Your brain tumour."

"My what?" She paused in shock and terror. _Got_ _her._

"Brain. Tumour. Your eyes aren't focusing and you're having a hard time staying on-topic. You forget which things you're saying are meant to be a secret, and which aren't. Add that to the fact that you've just recovered from cancer, and it all adds up to a very nasty lump in the brain. Good day." He walked out, pausing only to wait for the metal doors to open.

Returning to what passed for his house, he observed the climate and the terrain. _The_ _Mediterranean_, he concluded, possibly Italy. He had only just returned to his new lodgings and began to pluck on the violin which whoever ran this place had conveniently provided to him when the phone rang. Sherlock ignored it. The stereo came on and an announcer spoke: "You're wanted in the Green Dome." Sherlock ignored that, too. The loudspeaker crackled.

"Would Number 23 please report to the Green Dome?"

Sherlock ignored that and kept on plucking at his violin.

The telly switched on and a message in text was visible. _No_ _need_ _to_ _be_ _pertinacious_, it said. _Kindly_ _report_ _to_ _the_ _Green_ _Dome._

Sherlock sighed and put the violin down. He walked as slowly as possible to the dome, just to irritate whoever was around. He would have continued in this way if the large weather balloon-like thing hadn't been nudging him forward after some time.

He approached the rooms and, after the sliding door opened, began to speak.

"I've already told you, I don't—" He stopped upon seeing that Number Two had evidently been replaced, and the new person in the chair, wearing the badge, had a very familiar face. "Mycroft?"

"Ah, there you are—I've been calling."

"What exactly is going on?"

The elder Holmes smiled. "Just a minor mix-up, nothing serious. Do drink up," he said, offering his brother tea. Sherlock hesitantly took it. He did not sip.

"You want to get home, don't you?"

"Obviously." Sherlock's suspicious look spoke volumes. After all, when one cannot trust one's own sibling, who can one trust?

"Then drink the tea."

"Why would I drink drugged tea?"

"Because, due to various…constraints, I cannot allow you to leave while conscious. I've arranged for a sofa." He gestured to the wall, where, in fact, a sofa had been added to the room.

"You know I don't like this." Sherlock glared at his brother and crossed to the sofa.

"Of course, but since this is all in the past, it's too late to prevent it." Mycroft smiled the smile which was meant to be reassuring but somehow ended up as creepy—just as he always had.

"The present. It's still the present." Sherlock sighed at the tea, knowing what it would mean. He would lose consciousness. He would be transported in a way that he could not fend off any ill-wishers. He would be utterly helpless. But he had glimpsed this private world. He wanted to have no part of it. So he drank the tea in one large gulp and settled on the couch, waiting for the drug to kick in. As it did, every fiber of instinct tried to fight it. Just as his eyes closed, he heard Mycroft speak.

"And do try to stay away from BISCUIT."


End file.
